Tylenol-maker Kenvue fires CEO Thibaut Mongon, hires Kirk Pery as interim CEO
Kenvue, which produces Aveeno, Band-Aid Brand, Johnson's, Listerine, Neutrogena and Tylenol, announced that Mongon "has departed the company" and stepped down from the board.
Kirk Perry, a director with more than 30 years of technology and business transformation experience, was appointed as interim CEO.
"As interim CEO, I am excited to leverage my decades of experience leading businesses across the consumer and technology industries and work with the Board and leadership team to put the business on the strongest footing to deliver on Kenvue's full potential and realize our goal of top-tier financial performance," Perry said.
Heidrick & Struggles, an executive search firm, is assisting the company in a search for its next fulltime CEO.
"The Board's strategic review is underway, and we are considering a broad range of potential alternatives, including ways to simplify the Company's portfolio and how it operates. At the same time, with the CEO transition and recent appointment of a new CFO, we are aligning leadership expertise to drive the Company forward," said Larry Merlo, Kenvue's Chair of the Board. "We are confident that the steps we are taking put Kenvue on the right path to deliver both near- and long-term value creation for shareholders."
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CNN
8 minutes ago
- CNN
Apple just spent $500 million to source a material that's critical for iPhones from the US
Apple is investing $500 million in a deal with US rare earths company MP Materials as the iPhone maker faces pressure from President Donald Trump to produce its popular smartphones domestically. As part of the partnership announced on Tuesday, Apple committed to buying rare earth magnets directly from MP Materials to help bolster its US supply chain. Apple will also collaborate with the company on a new recycling line in California, which will repurpose recycled rare earth materials to use in Apple products. The move is part of a $500 billion investment Apple announced earlier this year to expand its US operations as the Trump administration pushes to onshore technology manufacturing and reduce reliance on China. Rare earths, which are critical for everything from smartphones to TVs and military jets, have been a key bargaining chip in trade talks between Washington and Beijing. That's because China controls nearly all rare earths processing. 'American innovation drives everything we do at Apple, and we're proud to deepen our investment in the US economy,' Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a press release. 'Rare earth materials are essential for making advanced technology, and this partnership will help strengthen the supply of these vital materials here in the United States.' MP Materials' facility in Fort Worth, Texas, will create new magnet manufacturing lines specifically for Apple products. Shipments are expected to begin in 2027 and will eventually support 'hundreds of millions of Apple devices,' according to MP Materials. The materials will be delivered throughout the United States and around the world. Apple says the expansion will create dozens of new jobs. Both companies will also provide training to develop a US workforce for magnet manufacturing. China has a virtual monopoly on rare earth elements, which are critical components for everyday products from smartphones to wind turbines to LED lights and flat-screen TVs. They're also crucial for batteries in electric vehicles as well as MRI scanners and cancer treatments. The name rare earths is also a bit of a misnomer. The materials are found throughout the Earth's crust but are difficult and costly to extract and process. China has the only equipment needed to process some of the various elements and currently controls 92% of the global output in the processing stage. While the MP Materials deal could help Apple curry favor with Trump amid tariff threats, it also aligns with Apple's efforts to incorporate more recycled materials into its products – a plan already in place long before Trump took office. The iPhone 16e, which launched earlier this year, includes 30 percent recycled content, for example. Apple says it uses recycled rare earths in its major products, including in magnets found in the latest iPhones, iPads, Apple Watches, MacBook and Mac models. The Trump administration has been pushing for Apple and other tech giants to produce their products in the United States rather than rely on assembly facilities and supply chain operations largely located in China, India and Vietnam. 'I have long ago informed Tim Cook of Apple that I expect their iPhone's that will be sold in the United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else,' Trump posted on Truth Social in May. 'If that is not the case, a Tariff of at least 25% must be paid by Apple to the U.S.' Apple hasn't discussed plans to move iPhone manufacturing to the US, and doing so seems unlikely. That's because it would require the tech giant to upend how it builds its most lucrative product. Critically, Apple and MP Manufacturing's collaboration involves developing the talent pool needed for magnet manufacturing. That's part of the reason why it's so challenging to move iPhone production to the United States – America lacks the highly specialized labor required to do so, experts have said. 'The expertise to make each of the components is something that has to be worked on for a long period of time,' David Marcotte, senior vice president at international market research company Kantar, previously told CNN. Cook has also spoken about the labor gap in the past, describing the workforce in China as being a combination of 'craftsman' skills, 'sophisticated robotics' and 'the computer science world' when speaking at a Fortune Magazine event in 2017. But the commitment to invest in US-sourced rare earths is likely to please Trump. The president has touted Apple's previous investment announcement as a victory in his efforts to boost American manufacturing. Apple is just one of many tech giants that have expanded their American footprint over the past several months. Texas Instruments committed $60 billion to make semiconductors in the United States in June, and Taiwanese chipmaking giant TSMC invested $100 billion in US manufacturing in March. Leading AI chipmaker Nvidia also said it would build its supercomputers in the United States in April. – CNN's Chris Isidore contributed to this report
Time Magazine
16 minutes ago
- Time Magazine
Chinese Universities Rise in the Ranks as Senate Democrats Accuse Trump of ‘Ceding Global Leadership to China'
President Donald Trump's attacks on higher education have hurt colleges across the country, but they may also weaken the U.S.' ability to compete with its geopolitical rival China, some lawmakers say. The Trump Administration's protectionist actions, from issuing sweeping global tariffs to the shuttering of USAID, are 'ceding global leadership to China,' Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said in a report released on Monday. Commissioned by ranking member of the committee Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), the report comes after House Republicans proposed an appropriations bill that includes further cuts to foreign aid. [time-brightcove not-tgx='true'] The report was also published amid the backdrop of China stepping up its diplomatic efforts, opening itself up to more tourists, and advancing the global reputation of its universities. China has long sought to court the world's top talent by increasing government investment into higher education, boosting funding for science and technological research, and recruiting faculty from overseas. Chinese universities have risen steadily in global rankings, with 15 schools in mainland China and Hong Kong listed among the top 100 universities on the 2025-2026 Best Global Universities Rankings, compiled by U.S. News and World Report. Tsinghua University in Beijing ranked the highest of the Chinese universities on the USNWR list, moving up two spots from last year to place at 11th (tied with Imperial College London). Peking University and Zhejiang University also rose in the rankings to 25th, up from 31st, and 45th, up from 51st, respectively. That's a sharp jump from seven years ago, when just two Chinese universities were in the top 100: Tsinghua University at 50th and Peking University at 68th. While U.S. universities still dominate the top ten, the ranking suggests that Chinese universities are becoming more attractive to global talent at a time when the Trump Administration's targeting of U.S. colleges threatens to hurt American competitiveness. 'As America retreats from global leadership under the Trump Administration, China is well-positioned and eager to exploit this moment of American disengagement,' said Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The report also warned that Trump's crackdowns on higher education 'have laid the groundwork for a brain drain.' 'At a time when China is articulating its vision for a future that leaves America behind, the Administration's abdication of global leadership is dangerous and will impose real costs on the American people,' Sen. Shaheen said. Trump's pressure campaign on U.S. universities has ranged from slashing billions of dollars in research funding to restricting international students. Trump has especially targeted elite schools in the U.S., such as Harvard University, which still occupies USNWR's number one spot. Asian universities are already trying to make the most of the possible 'brain drain' from the U.S., with several courting Harvard transfers. Read More: How Trump's Crackdown on International Students Could Escalate Trade Tensions With China This year's rankings don't yet reflect the direct effects of Trump's policies, but experts have said that Trump's campaign is likely to accelerate the growing global popularity of Asian, especially Chinese, universities, while discouraging international students from going to the U.S. 'There is a slow, long-term strengthening of the position of the global power of universities in China,' says Simon Marginson, a professor of higher education at Oxford University. 'And the turmoil in U.S. higher education will hasten that trend. The present Administration has created a space for international rivals to fill.' Chinese enrollment at U.S. universities has declined over the years Chinese students and researchers had already started to turn away from the U.S. before Trump returned to the White House for a second term. Chinese students were the largest proportion of international students in the U.S. in the 2019-20 academic year, with more than 370,000 of them. That number had shrunk more than 25% by the 2023-2024 academic year, with India overtaking China for the number of nationals studying in the U.S. Nearly 20,000 ethnic Chinese scientists left the U.S. for other countries, including China, between 2010 and 2021, according to a study by researchers at Princeton, Harvard, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. That trend accelerated in 2018 during Trump's first term, when his Administration introduced the 'China Initiative,' which investigated scientists affiliated with China on the basis of national security concerns and resulted in charges against more than two dozen academics. Critics accused the program of racial profiling and fearmongering, and said it created a 'chilling effect' within the scientific community that curtailed research and innovation. A 2021 MIT analysis found that a majority of the cases the Department of Justice opened against Chinese and Asian American researchers were not related to economic espionage or intellectual property theft. (The Biden Administration ended the China Initiative in February 2022.) The Trump Administration also targeted Chinese students through a restrictive visa policy beginning in 2020. Proclamation 10043 prohibited the entry or issuance of visas to Chinese students enrolled in U.S. graduate programs with ties to Chinese 'military-civil' universities, resulting in the cancellations of more than 1,000 student visas. A 2021 letter signed by over 40 associations, including the Association of American Universities and the American Council of Education, expressed concern about 'reports of this proclamation being applied very broadly.' Biden resumed regular visa services in China in May 2021, but left the proclamation in place, with reports of Chinese students being denied visas on that basis occurring up to at least 2023. Several U.S. universities have also ended their academic partnerships with Chinese universities in the past year. The University of California, Berkeley, cut ties with the Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute in February after the Trump Administration opened an investigation into undisclosed funding from the Chinese government. The University of Michigan abruptly ended a two-decade partnership with Shanghai Jiao Tong University in January on the basis of national security concerns. In September, the Georgia Institute of Technology ended its partnership with the Georgia Tech Shenzhen Institute for the same reason. In the meantime, thousands of Chinese researchers have returned to China, according to the aforementioned study, and higher education experts predict that Chinese applicants to the U.S. may begin looking elsewhere, including within China itself. Chinese universities' ability to attract homegrown talent has been a key strength, Senthil Nathan, managing director and co-founder of higher education consultancy Edu Alliance, told United Arab Emirates state-owned outlet the National last year. 'These Chinese universities are selecting the best Chinese students. That's a huge difference. They are not following the western blueprint,' Nathan said. 'They are not attracting the best and the brightest from the world, but from within their country because they have enough resources.' Read More: What to Know About New Social Media Screening Rules for Student Visas A hostile environment for some international students in the U.S. The Trump Administration in recent months has clamped down on international students in the U.S. In May, Trump introduced heightened screenings for student visa applicants, including requiring applicants to have 'public' social media profiles, while the Administration that month said it would begin 'aggressively' revoking Chinese student visas. Earlier this year, Trump also began targeting foreign-born students for deportation and threatened to bar international students from enrolling at Harvard—moves widely seen as attempts to compel U.S. universities to comply with his demands on academic curricula and campus activism. Trump has also threatened Harvard with budget cuts and federal contract cancellations as part of that pressure campaign. 'For a long time, the U.S. has been considered a top destination by international students, and at the same time, U.S. higher education has benefited much from international students especially regarding financial stability and research,' Lili Yang, an associate professor specializing in higher education at the University of Hong Kong, told TIME in May. The U.S. has cultivated a 'reputation as a place for free expression.' But Trump's policies have 'damaged' that reputation, she said. 'Without brilliant international students, U.S. research and technology may gradually face a shortage of human resources and lose its globally leading position.' While China has been trying to boost its soft power, in no small part through academic exchange, Trump's higher education policies demonstrate that 'the Administration no longer relates to the world in terms of soft power in education and science,' Marginson told TIME in May. Madi Biedermann, a spokesperson for the Department of Education, told USA Today that the Administration's actions will help 'faculty and graduate students to focus their attention on advancing science' by targeting antisemitism on campus. Quelling pro-Palestinian speech has been positioned as a driving force behind Trump's pressure campaign. However, many of the students whose visas were initially revoked (before Trump reversed course) did not participate in any pro-Palestinian activism and some of Trump's demands are broadly related to diversity, equity, and inclusivity (DEI) related programs. 'American universities that are committed to their academic mission, protect students on campus, and follow all federal laws will have no problem accessing generous taxpayer support for their programs,' Biedermann added. China is investing in research as Trump slashes funding The growth of Chinese universities' global reputation has been in large part due to significant government investment into higher education, especially scientific research and development. China has steadily increased its spending in that sector over the last five years, and it has seen dividends in its output. Between 2018 and 2020, China published nearly a quarter of the world's scientific papers, surpassing the U.S., and it has since worked to maintain this pace. Duncan Ross, the chief data officer at Times Higher Education which also compiles an annual global rankings list, told the National last year that the Chinese government has targeted investment at the national, regional, and city levels. 'It's not that U.S. universities have got worse in any way. They are improving,' he said, but universities in Asia 'are just improving more quickly.' At the same time, Trump has ordered billions of dollars in federal research grants to be cut, which would gut research on cancer, HIV, sickle cell disease, and more. An analysis published on July 9 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science found that Trump's cuts put a third of basic scientific research programs at risk, while the National Institutes of Health could have its budget cut by 40%. Even if international students were willing to take the risks of studying in the U.S. under a tremulous immigration policy, experts say a decline in research could knock U.S. universities off their global perch. It could even push American talent to look overseas. A March poll by British scientific journal Nature found that 75% of U.S. scientists are considering leaving the country. 'China is already trying to seize the moment and recruit some of the brightest talent,' Sen. Patty Murray (D-Washington) said at a congressional hearing in April. 'Bright young people, who want to do medical research here, are suddenly worried. Why start that PhD if their funding is going to get yanked away? Why study new vaccines if RFK Jr. [Secretary of Health and Human Services] is going to meddle in their work? Why come to the U.S. for promising research if Trump might just try to deport them for jaywalking?' Phil Baty, the chief global affairs officer at Times Higher Education, told the National last year that the steady rise of Chinese universities in global rankings suggest 'tectonic shifts in higher education from the West to the East, with real excellence demonstrated in East Asia and South-East Asia in particular, and well beyond.' 'The U.S. needs to remind others, and itself, that it's constantly competing for its position in the global talent marketplace. We can't be complacent if we want to maintain our dominance in innovation and tech even as other nations fight to take the lead,' Lex Zhao, a managing partner at immigrant-founded venture capital firm One Way Ventures, told TIME in May. Trump's policies, he adds, are 'driving foreign talent away from our institutions and into the arms of more welcoming nations—even those hostile to us—when we should be doing the exact opposite.'
Forbes
20 minutes ago
- Forbes
Nvidia To Resume China Chip Sales Again With RTX Pro
SANTA CLARA, CALIFORNIA - The biggest American tech company by market cap is now poised to resume chip sales to China with a new variant aimed at complying with export controls. Tech media reports this comes after a meeting between CEO Jensen Huang and Donald Trump, in the White House. This is the second time that Nvidia's permission to sell in China has changed. As widely reported in April, the firm got re-approved to sell chips to China after a dinner meeting between Huang and Trump in the spring, apparently including a tit-for-tat deal in which Nvidia would create new server setups stateside. Now, in the most recent edition of the saga, Trump seems to be hyping the company's value to the U.S. and tying it to his greater export strategy, with this post: "NVIDIA IS UP 47% SINCE TRUMP TARIFFS. USA is taking in Hundreds of Billions of Dollars in Tariffs," Trump posted on Truth Social. "COUNTRY IS NOW 'BACK.'" As for value, Huang has estimated China's total chip market around $50 billion, and said that a ban on sales there would cost the company around $8 billion. Nvidia's Exportable Architecture Part of the change reportedly involves a different kind of Nvidia chip than the H20 which the U.S. government had banned for Chinese export. The rule on sales to China seems to be aimed at limiting what kinds of power the Middle Kingdom can get its hand on – in terms of memory and overall capability. I asked ChatGPT what's special about the new 'China chip,' and the model supplied this: 'The China-specific variant is derived from the Blackwell RTX Pro 6000, but is underpowered relative to the flagship — it uses GDDR7 memory instead of HBM and lacks NVLink.' That design presumably aims at working with the following limitations imposed by U.S. officials, as cited by Connie Loizos at TechCrunch: 'Specific performance thresholds, including total memory bandwidth of 1,400 gigabytes per second or input/output bandwidth of 1,100 GB per second.' On to China Huang is also expected to attend the International Supply Chain Expo in Beijing days after the announcement, and may want to meet with China's premier Li Qiang. It's important to note that Nvidia won't actually be shipping for a while: the new chip will not start rolling into the Chinese market until September (or later). How is Huang pushing the pros of Nvidia selling to China? Zijing Wu and Cheng Leng report this at the Financial Times July 9: 'Speaking at the Computex tech show in Taiwan in May, the CEO condemned US export controls aimed at limiting China's access to AI chips as 'a failure.' He said they had inspired Chinese companies to accelerate the development of their own AI products.' RTX Pro Adoption In related news, CoreWeave announced it will assimilate the new chip into its cloud platform. As a hyperscaler, the firm has garnered a lot of attention for robust growth based on events like a strategic deal with OpenAI, and a partnership with IBM where CoreWeave will provide compute capacity for IBM's Granite AI models. "CoreWeave is built to move at the speed of innovation, and with the new RTX PRO 6000-based instances, we're once again first to bring advanced AI and graphics technology to the cloud,' said CoreWeave CTO Peter Salanki in a press statement. So as the Nvidia market cap hits a staggering $4 trillion, the company will be busy selling on both sides of an increasingly connected world market. Market Trends Amid all of this, Nvidia stock gained by double digits this month, and nearly doubled from values this spring. The U.S./China trade tensions are a major factor in both tech markets. As we ponder the rapid advances in model capabilities, we also have to keep an eye on hardware markets, not to mention things like environmental concerns from data centers, and what these innovations will mean for our societies. Keep an eye out for more on these developments.
